2011 MLB Schedule Change

I noticed that the 2011 regular season schedule has a huge change in it, breaking from a tradition that has been kept for longer than I've been alive.  Traditionally, the schedule is 26 weeks long, and starts at the beginning of the week and ending on a weekend Sunday.  Next year, it seems to be moved up a series, and starts with three game series on a Friday and ends with three game series on a Wednesday.

I'm not sure what's up, but I heard some rumors that baseball wants to change the post-season a bit and make the league division series seven games.  I wonder if moving the season up three or four days is the remedy to accommodate this instead of pushing the World Series back yet again further into chilly November.  There's also a nasty rumor that in the next couple of years MLB wants to add an extra set of wild card teams.  Oh, please, NO!  I'll write about the anatomy of a regular season schedule during this offseason.